The 50 Best Orig­i­nal Songs Writ­ten for Movies

Mia and Vin­cent twist­ing to Chuck Berry. Wayne and Garth head­bang­ing to Queen. Ren­ton over­dos­ing to Lou Reed. When a film real­ly nails a nee­dle drop, you feel it. But while cre­at­ing an effec­tive juke­box playlist has become an art in itself, per­fect­ed by the likes of Mar­tin Scors­ese and Quentin Taran­ti­no, using pre-exist­ing music in a movie can have its draw­backs. Easy Rid­er may have cap­tured the free-wheel­ing spir­it of the 1960s thanks in part to its promi­nent use of Steppenwolf’s ​‘Born to be Wild’, but a piece of pop­u­lar music can take on dif­fer­ent mean­ings over time.

Some­times, of course, a film­mak­er will reach out to a musi­cian they admire ask­ing them to con­tribute to a spe­cif­ic project. There is a long and rich tra­di­tion of this – but what are the all-time best orig­i­nal songs writ­ten for films? After care­ful­ly thumb­ing through our 7” col­lec­tion, we’ve hand-pick­ing 50 choice cuts for your delec­ta­tion. You’ll no doubt recog­nise many of the songs list­ed below from now icon­ic scenes, and hope­ful­ly there’s one or two more obscure tracks you’ll be dis­cov­er­ing for the first time.

The rank­ing of these songs was, nat­u­ral­ly, a sub­jec­tive exer­cise, but in many instances wider cul­tur­al rel­e­vance was as much a decid­ing fac­tor as per­son­al taste. For the sake of brevi­ty, we’ve cho­sen to omit orches­tral scores and music from Dis­ney films (sor­ry, Frozen fans), as well as songs fea­tured in con­ven­tion­al musi­cals, both clas­sic and con­tem­po­rary. We’ve also lim­it­ed our­selves to one Bond film, just to keep things interesting.

Here are the 50 best orig­i­nal songs writ­ten for movies, embed­ded below so you can lis­ten as you peruse the list. Think we’ve missed some­thing? Let us know @LWLies

Writ­ten by Andrew Cedar, Justin Franks, Char­lie Puth and Cameron Thomaz; per­formed by Wiz Khal­i­fa ft. Char­lie Puth

When Paul Walk­er died in a car acci­dent in 2013, the Fast and the Furi­ous lost one of its most beloved stars. His final appear­ance as Bri­an O’Conner in Furi­ous 7 was marked with a touch­ing trib­ute at the film’s close, in which O’Conner bids farewell to long-time friend Dominic Toret­to, played by Vin Diesel. Wiz Khalifa’s vers­es on this pop-rap bal­lad under­score the impor­tance of fam­i­ly (which has always been at the heart of the F&F films) while Puth’s piano melody and vocal hook pro­vide the emo­tion­al core. Teamed with a mon­tage high­light­ing Walker’s 13-year his­to­ry with the fran­chise, it’s an emo­tion­al but nev­er cloy­ing good­bye. Han­nah Woodhead

Writ­ten by David Rawl­ings and Gillian Welch; per­formed by Tim Blake Nel­son and Willie Watson

One of the most sur­pris­ing moments in The Bal­lad of Buster Scrug­gs was this lit­tle dit­ty, which kicks in about five min­utes into The Coen Broth­ers’ anthol­o­gy west­ern. It’s a sim­ple, folksy cow­boy dit­ty, accom­pa­nied by the sight of Tim Blake Nelson’s tit­u­lar Buster Scrug­gs slow­ly ascend­ing to Heav­en, strum­ming a lyre. Now, whether or not a gun­slinger like Buster Scrug­gs would make it to the pearly gates is debat­able, but in the con­text of the film, the sight con­trasts with Scrug­gs’ trig­ger-hap­py per­sona, and sets the stage for the next five sto­ries, all of which grap­ple with the busi­ness of life and death in the Old West. HW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Dean Mar­tin, accom­pa­nied by Ricky Nelson

With pop­u­lar croon­ers Dean Mar­tin and Ricky Nel­son occu­py­ing lead roles, Rio Bra­vo didn’t have much choice but to include a cou­ple of musi­cal num­bers amidst the gun­fights and fron­tier-spir­it brava­do. Thank­ful­ly, this coun­try-west­ern tune is so charm­ing that it doesn’t feel forced, pro­vid­ing a per­fect­ly judged moment of respite in the film’s action. It’s a won­der­ful­ly atmos­pher­ic piece which evokes images of camp fires, Win­ches­ter repeaters, and an era since lost to time. Mark Alli­son

Writ­ten and per­formed by David Hess

Fun fact: the actor who plays the sadis­tic ser­i­al rapist Krug in Wes Craven’s noto­ri­ous Video Nasty also wrote and per­formed the film’s sound­track. The late David Hess may not be a house­hold name but he was a reg­u­lar fix­ture of ​’70s and ​’80s exploita­tion fod­der, appear­ing in the likes of Hitch-Hike, The House on the Edge of the Park and Swamp Thing. As a song­writer and musi­cian, his claim to fame was that in 1956 he record­ed the orig­i­nal ver­sion of ​‘All Shook Up’, which became a num­ber one sin­gle the fol­low­ing year for a cer­tain Elvis Pres­ley. But it’s this ambling, eerie folk bal­lad for which he deserves to be remem­bered. Rarely has a song set the tone for a film more apt­ly: ​“And the road leads to nowhere…” Adam Wood­ward

Writ­ten and per­formed by Tom Waits

Tom Waits is one of those rare, decade-span­ning artists whose work just gets rich­er with time. His jazzy, bar­room lul­la­by phase end­ed, and his cre­ative­ly fecund, ​“bang-a-radi­a­tor-with-a-cro­quet-mal­let” phase began. Then he some­how found a hap­py medi­um between these two buzzing poles in his spo­radic, soul­ful post-2000 out­put. The orig­i­nal con­tri­bu­tions he sup­plied for the sound­track to Rober­to Begnini’s The Tiger in the Snow are eas­i­ly the best thing about this maudlin, mis­fired shock­er. ​‘You Can Nev­er Hold Back the Spring’ is a gor­geous, tear-jerk­ing exam­ple of one of those scratchy, Weimar-inspired, street-cor­ner ser­e­nades that Waits seems to write with the same ease the rest of draw breathe. David Jenk­ins

Writ­ten by Karen Orzolek with lyrics by Karen Orzolek and Spike Jonze; per­formed by Karen O

In the music video for ​‘The Moon Song’, Yeah Yeah Yeahs front­woman Karen O admits that she wrote and record­ed the bal­lad at her din­ing room table, near where she’d read the script for Spike Jonze’s Her for the first time. Old friends and ex-part­ners, Jonze and O col­lab­o­rat­ed once before on the sound­track for Where the Wild Things Are, but this charm­ing ukulele bal­lad is notable for its place in the film as much as how sweet and del­i­cate it is in its own right. Per­formed by Joaquin Phoenix and Scar­lett Johans­son in the film, it encap­su­lates the feel­ing of falling in love after so long alone, and that joint under­stand­ing that comes from find­ing some­one who feels like home. HW

Writ­ten by Lady Gaga, Andrew Wyatt, Antho­ny Rosso­man­do and Mark Ron­son; per­formed by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper

For the fourth big screen ver­sion of A Star Is Born, direc­tor Bradley Coop­er pre­vailed upon one of the most recog­nis­able stars in the world to play his lead­ing lady. A film about musi­cians needs good music, so Lady Gaga’s cast­ing was a per­fect choice, and the pow­er bal­lad penned by Gaga (with assis­tance from Andrew Wyatt, Antho­ny Rosso­man­do and Mark Ron­son) has become as pop­u­lar as the film. Blend­ing Jack­son Maine’s coun­try twang with Ally’s unmis­tak­able vocals, the song works not just because of Gaga and Cooper’s chem­istry, but its posi­tion­ing with­in the film. It’s a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort that brings them togeth­er, and demon­strates the very real moment when the tit­u­lar Star is Born on-stage. HW

Writ­ten by Christo­pher Cross, Burt Bacharach, Car­ole Bay­er Sager and Peter Allen; per­formed by Christo­pher Cross

Yacht rock stan­dard bear­er Christo­pher Cross pos­sessed a face for radio, so when MTV came to rule the roost, he was out on his pro­fes­sion­al ear. His lega­cy includes a very good self-titled album, and the absolute­ly soar­ing theme from the Dud­ley Moore-star­ring com­e­dy about a per­ma-soused Eng­lish socialite in the Big Apple, Arthur. It’s a song that pro­vides the answer to the hypo­thet­i­cal (but nec­es­sary) conun­drum of what you would do were you caught between the Moon and New York City, and it con­tains the kind of sax solo that like­ly kick-start­ed a thou­sand unplanned preg­nan­cies. DJ

Writ­ten by Kendrick Lamar, SZA, Soun­wave and Al Shux; per­formed by Lamar and SZA

Ryan Coogler hand­picked hip hop super­star Kendrick Lamar to pro­duce the sound­track for Black Pan­ther, bring­ing a much-need­ed sense of musi­cal iden­ti­ty to an ele­ment often over­looked by Mar­vel movies. (Remem­ber the Spi­der-Man and Bat­man sound­tracks of the ​’90s and ear­ly 2000s? Where did that com­mit­ment go?) All the Stars is the jew­el in the soundtrack’s crown, appear­ing over the cred­its of the film and pair­ing Lamar with SZA, whose vocals pro­vide a con­trast while remain­ing in dia­logue with Lamar’s. Giv­en the con­fi­dent ener­gy and slick pro­duc­tion val­ues of Black Pan­ther, it’s only right that it has an end cred­its song to match. HW

Com­posed by Michel Legrand with Eng­lish lyrics by Alan and Mar­i­lyn Bergman; per­formed by Noël Harrison

Thomas Crown is an almost entire­ly impen­e­tra­ble char­ac­ter; an impec­ca­bly debonair mil­lion­aire played with icy indif­fer­ence by Steve McQueen. As such, this song – for which French com­pos­er Michel Legrand and Amer­i­can lyri­cists Alan and Mar­i­lyn Bergman won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Song – pro­vides a rare glimpse into the inner work­ings of his psy­che, expos­ing the list­less ennui which dri­ves him to plot elab­o­rate bank rob­beries the thrill. It’s a per­fect exam­ple of how film sound­tracks can make for an effec­tive form of sto­ry­telling. MA

Writ­ten by Hol­ger Czukay, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt, and Damo Suzu­ki; per­formed by Can

Ger­man krautrock leg­ends Can released a com­pi­la­tion album of their var­i­ous con­tri­bu­tions to the world of film – a disc hand­i­ly titled ​‘Sound­tracks’. Kick­ing off side B is their aston­ish­ing, 14-minute-plus metro­nom­ic wig-out ​‘Moth­er Sky’, which fea­tured in Pol­ish direc­tor Jerzy Skolomowski’s Swing­ing Lon­don-set psy­chodra­ma, ​‘Deep End’. The track plays like an alter­na­tive sis­ter cut to anoth­er of the band’s long-and-wind­ing mas­ter­works, Hal­leluwah, and its air of fuzzy delir­i­um per­fect­ly chimes with the film’s com­mit­ment to wal­low­ing in the shab­by dere­lic­tion of the Soho side-streets. DJ

Writ­ten by Quin­cy Jones with lyrics by Don Black; per­formed by Matt Monro

A beau­ti­ful red Lam­borgh­i­ni Miu­ra thun­ders through the Ital­ian Alps, snow-capped peaks flut­ter­ing past as a mys­te­ri­ous dri­ver expert­ly winds his way through pic­turesque, labyrinthine roads. Beneath this vision of impos­si­ble lux­u­ry, Matt Monro’s dul­cet tones pro­vide a sooth­ing foun­da­tion, mould­ing an almost pal­pa­ble sense of tran­quil­li­ty – soon to be brought to a sud­den and clat­ter­ing end. A mas­ter­ful blend of music and imagery. MA

Writ­ten by Gior­gio Moroder and Tom Whit­lock; per­formed by Ken­ny Loggins

A whole host of flavour-of-the-month artists (includ­ing Toto, Bryan Adams, REO Speed­wag­on and Corey Hart) were approached to per­form this song before the hon­our final­ly fell to Ken­ny Log­gins. As such, this might rep­re­sent pop music at its most cor­po­rate and cold­ly man­u­fac­tured by pop leg­end Gior­gio Moroder – but if it results in synth beats like this, who cares? Log­gins’ final track is an invig­o­rat­ing slice of ​’80s excess which skil­ful­ly echoes the macho absur­di­ty of the film. MA

Writ­ten and per­formed by David Bowie

It may not be anyone’s favourite David Bowie song, but ​‘Absolute Begin­ners’ has aged bet­ter than a lot of his mid-’80s out­put. Although Julien Temple’s adap­ta­tion of Col­in Macinnes’ ode to the British youth cul­ture explo­sion of the 1950s was derid­ed by crit­ics, Bowie’s hope­less­ly roman­tic theme song – with its earnest lyrics and mas­sive sax­o­phone crescen­do – peaked at num­ber two in the UK sin­gles chart. Iron­i­cal­ly, it sig­nalled the begin­ning of the end of Bowie’s for­ay into main­stream pop, hav­ing been pro­ceed­ed by 1987’s exper­i­men­tal, over­stuffed art rock fias­co ​‘Nev­er Let Me Down’. AW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Isaac Hayes

If ever one need­ed to define the term ​“cool”, this song would be the obvi­ous answer. Shaft was a land­mark moment in the por­tray­al of black iden­ti­ty in main­stream cin­e­ma, and Isaac Hayes’ sound­track was sim­i­lar­ly influ­en­tial. With this title track, the com­pos­er became the first African-Amer­i­can to win the Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Song, and in doing so inspired a new breed of soul musi­cians. MA

Writ­ten by Hal David and Burt Bacharach; per­formed by BJ Thomas

BJ Thomas is prob­a­bly known for two things: his track, ​‘Hooked on a Feel­ing’, which was re-record­ed (sul­lied, some might say?) by the pride of Germany’s record­ing indus­try, David Has­sel­hoff; and singing the Bacharach/­David-penned depres­sion dit­ty, ​‘Rain­drops Keep Fallin’ on My Head’, aka the theme to the wettest west­ern ever made, Butch Cas­sidy and the Sun­dance Kid. Kris Kristof­fersen and Bob Dylan were both, ahem, ​“busy” when approached to record the track. Still, BJ makes a fine fist of its lilt­ing melody and soft show­tune stylings – and he was duly award­ed by the Acad­e­my. DJ

Writ­ten by John Bar­ry with lyrics by Hal David; per­formed by Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong’s final ever record­ing is a Bond theme unlike any oth­er; a straight­for­ward tes­ta­ment to the joys of falling in love. In a break from series tra­di­tion, the song doesn’t accom­pa­ny a title sequence of writhing female sil­hou­ettes, but a touch­ing mon­tage of James Bond and his future wife, Tra­cy, frol­ick­ing through a sum­mer romance. The song has since become a favourite at wed­dings, which is deeply iron­ic con­sid­er­ing the film’s trag­ic con­clu­sion. MA

Writ­ten by Frankie Sul­li­van and Jim Peterik; per­formed by Survivor

There’s a good rea­son why it’s nigh on impos­si­ble to lis­ten to ​‘Eye of the Tiger’ with­out air box­ing along to its punchy beat: Survivor’s Jim Peterik and Frankie Sul­li­van wrote the song’s rhythm gui­tar and drum parts to be syn­chro­nised with Rocky’s jabs. But the biggest hit of 1982 could have turned out very dif­fer­ent­ly. The sto­ry goes that when Sylvester Stal­lone sent the band an ini­tial edit of Rocky III on VHS, the train­ing mon­tage sequence over which ​‘Eye of the Tiger’ would even­tu­al­ly be placed had been cut to Queen’s ​‘Anoth­er One Bites The Dust’. Thank­ful­ly for Sur­vivor, Fred­die Mer­cury and Bri­an May had already turned Sly down, paving the way for the crown­ing of a new hard rock cham­pi­on. AW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Ray Park­er Jr

With one of the catchi­est riffs ever writ­ten, this song has become an indeli­ble part of pop­u­lar cul­ture. Orig­i­nal­ly giv­en only a few days to write the track, Ray Jay Park­er Jr. found inspi­ra­tion in late-night TV com­mer­cials and duly pro­duced a com­po­si­tion in the style of an adver­tis­ing jin­gle. In doing so, he encap­su­lat­ed the sur­re­al and mad­cap nature of the film whilst cre­at­ing a song which exists as a phe­nom­e­non in its own right. The 2016 film remake brought with it a mis­guid­ed cov­er ver­sion by Fall Out Boy, which has so far failed to make such an impact. MA

Writ­ten by Har­ry Nils­son; per­formed by Shel­ley Duvall

The very idea that Dis­ney would make a gor­geous, lived-in film fol­ly like Pop­eye now seems absurd and fan­ci­ful – all the more rea­son to trea­sure the mem­o­ry. Art film stal­wart Robert Alt­man takes the Mouse House cash and runs with this drug­gy rel­ic which stars a whol­ly inde­ci­pher­able Robin Williams plays the spinach-quaffing sea­man of the title, and the incom­pa­ra­ble Shelly Duvall is per­fect­ly cast as his lanky para­mour, Olive Oyle. And hon­ey-voiced croon­er Har­ry Nils­son may have earned his place in sil­ver screen infamy with his theme from Mid­night Cow­boy, ​‘Everybody’s Talkin’’, but his sound­track to Pop­eye – and its cen­tral love song, ​‘He Needs Me’ – stand as its equal, if not its bet­ter. DJ

Writ­ten by Paul Williams and Ken­neth Asch­er; per­formed by Ker­mit the Frog (Jim Henson)

The only song on this list per­formed by a frog pup­pet, ​‘Rain­bow Con­nec­tion’ is a sweet, impos­si­bly whole­some bal­lad writ­ten by Paul Williams and Ken­neth Asch­er, who had pre­vi­ous­ly worked togeth­er on tracks for the 1976 ver­sion of A Star is Born. Ini­tial­ly appear­ing at the open­ing of The Mup­pet Movie, Ker­mit the Frog sings and plays his ban­jo at home in his Flori­da swamp, dream­ing of star­dom. ​‘Rain­bow Con­nec­tion’ has since been cov­ered by every­one from Willy Nel­son to Weez­er, but Jim Henson’s earnest, nasal ren­di­tion as the lit­tle frog with big dreams is obvi­ous­ly still the best. HW

Writ­ten by Randy New­man; per­formed by Sarah McLachlan

Coun­try croon­er Randy New­man is as much a part of the Toy Sto­ry films as Tom Han­ks or Tim Allen, but his great­est con­tri­bu­tion to the fran­chise is the song he wrote for Sarah McLach­lan to per­form in the sec­ond film. A melan­choly piano bal­lad about the break­down of a rela­tion­ship, in the film it accom­pa­nies a mon­tage which explains the trag­ic back­sto­ry of tough cow­girl Jessie, aban­doned by her for­mer own­er Emi­ly. New­man him­self doubt­ed that the scene would work, sus­pect­ing chil­dren would not be inter­est­ed, but after observ­ing how an audi­ence react­ed in an ear­ly screen­ing, he changed his mind – to this day, it’s wide­ly regard­ed as one of Pixar’s finest moments. HW

Writ­ten by Björk with lyrics by Lars von Tri­er and Sjon Sig­urds­son; per­formed by Björk ft. Thom Yorke (Peter Stor­mare in the film)

Lars von Trier’s eccen­tric take on the MGM musi­cal tells of a gold-heart­ed immi­grant (Björk) with fail­ing eye­sight who comes a‑cropper in spec­tac­u­lar­ly grim fash­ion. If you can over­look the fact that this is the cin­e­mat­ic equiv­a­lent to tor­tur­ing kit­tens, it’s an unfor­get­table and pio­neer­ing work, not least for its extra­or­di­nary sound­track album, ​‘Sel­ma­songs’. ​‘I’ve Seen it All’ marks a melan­choly cen­tre­piece in which our read­i­ly self-sac­ri­fic­ing hero­ine claims that she believes her eyes have served their phys­i­cal pur­pose, and all the beau­ty and hor­ror in the world can just go away now. Includes a sub­lime assist from Thom Yorke on duet duties, plus sen­sa­tion­al use of swoon­ing orches­tral arrange­ments. DJ

Writ­ten and per­formed by Cat Stevens

‘If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out’ fea­tures twice in Hal Ashby’s gen­tly sub­ver­sive odd cou­ple com­e­dy: first up, it’s inten­tion­al­ly butchered by Ruth Gor­don (aka Maude), the actor turn­ing Cat Stevens’ uplift­ing melody into a jaun­ty music hall sin­ga­long; sec­ond, it’s heard at the very end of the film, as Bud Cort’s Harold skips along a grassy cliffedge, ban­jo in hand, hav­ing moments ear­li­er slammed his car into the rocks below. Writ­ten while Stevens was record­ing his fourth stu­dio album, ​‘Tea for the Tiller­man’, this is the most poignant cut from a sound­track com­prised of exist­ing and orig­i­nal music by the renowned British folk artist – a song about new begin­nings and learn­ing to let your­self be free. AW

Writ­ten by Ivan Matias, Andrea Mar­tin and Mar­queze Etheridge; per­formed by En Vogue

Some­times, a song writ­ten for a movie can end up becom­ing an artist or band’s defin­ing state­ment. Such is the case with ​‘Don’t Let Go’, a dra­mat­ic deep soul pow­er bal­lad from En Vogue that, arguably, the Cal­i­for­nia vocal quar­tet nev­er real­ly bet­tered. It was writ­ten for the sound­track to 1996’s Set It Off, a film which deserves to be more well known in that it is one of a small hand­ful of female-front­ed heist movies – pre­dat­ing the likes Ocean’s 8 by more than two decades. It was kept from the top of the chart by Toni Braxton’s ​‘Un-Break My Heart’ – gut­ting. DJ

Writ­ten by Mar­shall Math­ers; per­formed by Eminem

Eminem is no stranger to releas­ing hit songs, yet it’s fit­ting that his first num­ber one is about a once in a life­time oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn your life around and make your dreams come true. Lose Your­self was com­posed by Luis Resto and Jeff Bass, and was the first rap song to win the Acad­e­my Award for Best Orig­i­nal Song. Eminem didn’t even show up to col­lect his award because he thought it had no hopes of win­ning. But the win solid­i­fied the mes­sage in his lyrics to pur­sue your dreams until they become real­i­ty. MK

Writ­ten and per­formed by Bruce Springsteen

You might be for­giv­en for think­ing that any musi­cian who’s appeared on the cov­er of a mag­a­zine would save their A mate­r­i­al for the album, not for use on the clos­ing cred­its to some sap­py Hol­ly­wood movie. The Boss is an excep­tion, as he prof­fered one of his biggest ever hits to the great Jonathan Demme, for a film that became one of the director’s biggest ever hits. Grant­ed, the tune arrived on the back of per­haps his two weak­est stu­dio albums – ​‘Human Touch’ and ​‘Lucky Town’, both released in 1992. But this bold exper­i­ment, with its sim­ple drum machine beat and lay­ered synths com­bined with touch­ing lyrics that explore the lives of Aids suf­fer­ers, saw Bruce dou­ble-dip­ping on the award cir­cuit, tak­ing home sil­ver­ware in both film and music fra­ter­ni­ties. DJ

Writ­ten by Nico­las Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunck­el; per­formed by Air

There’s a unique cock­tail of sen­sa­tions to expe­ri­ence when you watch The Vir­gin Sui­cides. Sofia Coppola’s debut fea­ture deals in the roman­tic, ethe­re­al mys­tery of teenage sub­ur­bia as it tries to dis­cov­er who the five Lis­bon sis­ters real­ly are. You can almost feel the heat ema­nat­ing from the thick yel­low fil­ters, and the hazy nos­tal­gia is increased ten­fold by the film’s orig­i­nal score by French elec­tron­ic duo, Air. Play­ground Love is the first track on the album, although it com­pli­ments the pas­tel-hued slow­ness of Coppola’s teenagers per­fect­ly, the song res­onates with a more uni­ver­sal feel­ing of a dream­like, care­less youth out­side the film. It feels like the moth­er of Portishead’s ​‘Glo­ry Box’ and a close rel­a­tive of ​‘Par­adise Cir­cus’ by Mas­sive Attack – form­ing a gor­geous tril­o­gy of haunt­ing, del­i­cate trep­i­da­tion. Ella Kemp

Writ­ten and per­formed by Suf­jan Stevens

Indie folk dar­ling Suf­jan Stevens has been qui­et­ly enchant­i­ng fans with his spir­i­tu­al­i­ty-tinged melod­ic lo-fi pop since he began his career in 1995, and in 2016, film­mak­ing fan Luca Guadagni­no approached him to ask if Stevens would be inter­est­ed in nar­rat­ing his film Call Me By Your Name. He declined, but offered to instead con­tribute songs for the sound­track. While Visions of Gideon, which plays at the film’s close, might be a bonafide tear­jerk­er, Mys­tery of Love is its sweet­er coun­ter­part. The acoustic strings-and-piano bal­lad kicks in on screen when young Elio and Oliv­er take a trip togeth­er, and its hope­ful, heart­felt sen­ti­ment reflects the puri­ty of first love. HW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Elliott Smith

On the laun­dry list of head-slam­m­ing­ly bad deci­sions made by the vot­ing mem­bers of the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences, is there any more egre­gious than the award­ing of Best Orig­i­nal Song to Celine Dion’s syrupy karaōke sta­ple ​‘My Heart Will Go On’ over Elliott Smith’s ​‘Miss Mis­ery’? Yes yes, we know that the dol­ing out of lit­tle gold-plat­ed stat­uettes is essen­tial­ly mean­ing­less, but we can’t think of a more deserv­ing recip­i­ent than this aching­ly beau­ti­ful acoustic ele­gy, which clos­es out Gus Van Sant’s indie crowd-pleas­er. Smith’s per­for­mance at that year’s Oscars cer­e­mo­ny nev­er fails to send a shiv­er down our spine. AW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Aimee Mann

In a film like Mag­no­lia, you’ve got to hold onto every chance of reas­sur­ance that you can get. Paul Thomas Anderson’s blos­som­ing emo­tion­al odyssey presents and picks on 12 alien­at­ed souls, all bat­tling lone­li­ness and search­ing for hap­pi­ness. This is why Aimee Mann’s ​‘Save Me’ has such a cathar­tic impact: the wist­ful, implor­ing bal­lad gives Magnolia’s alien­at­ed and over­whelm­ing pool of emo­tions a com­mon out­pour, a com­mon relief. It’s a heart­break­ing song that could just about muf­fle the choked up tears that escape you while watch­ing the film. Appar­ent­ly, Mann’s past discog­ra­phy inspired Ander­son while writ­ing the script, which would explain why the final sound­track feels so inte­gral to the film’s core. Like the film, it’s a raw, hon­est song which feels simul­ta­ne­ous­ly inti­mate and epic in the inten­si­ty of emo­tion it’s cap­tur­ing. You’ll nev­er be able to shake it. EK

Writ­ten and per­formed by Jim­my Cliff

In The Hard­er They Come, we get to hear Jim­my Cliff’s jaun­ty reg­gae stan­dard many, many, many times. We hear him writ­ing it, record­ing it, then it’s played in the back­ground as his drug-push­ing out­law, Ivan, attempts to evade the police. This was the first of two fea­tures from the Jamaican direc­tor Per­ry Hen­zell, and it’s a vital and unflinch­ing doc­u­ment of hard­scrab­ble lives and thwart­ed ambi­tion in Kingston dur­ing the ear­ly ​’70s. The sound­track album became a clas­sic, and is often cred­it­ed with pop­u­lar­is­ing reg­gae in the West. The puls­ing title track remains, to this day, a 24-carat banger. DJ

Writ­ten by Deb­bie Har­ry and Gior­gio Moroder; per­formed by Blondie

When Blondie were approached by Ital­ian dis­co pro­duc­er Gior­gio Moroder to help com­pose and per­form the theme for 1980’s Amer­i­can Gigo­lo, they were already sec­ond in line after Ste­vie Nicks from Fleet­wood Mac declined the offer. But when the end prod­uct pro­vides such a theme song and then becomes the top-sell­ing sin­gle of the year, it’s safe to say it prob­a­bly all worked out for the best. The sto­ry on the upbeat track is told from the per­spec­tive of the main char­ac­ter in the film, a male pros­ti­tute played by Richard Gere. It seems fit­ting that the voice of new wave poster girl Deb­bie Har­ry accom­pa­nies a cen­tral per­for­mance that put Gere on the map as a sex sym­bol of his own era. EK

Writ­ten by Ray Evans and Jay Liv­ingston; per­formed by Nat King Cole (Char­lie Spi­vak and Tom­my Lynn in the film)

This gen­tle bal­lad owes its exis­tence to the per­sis­tence of a lit­tle-known music pub­lish­er named Lar­ry Shayne. It was Shayne who pestered Nat King Cole to make ​‘Mona Lisa’ his next sin­gle for Capi­tol Records (“I did that song just to get that Shayne fel­low out of my hair,” the Amer­i­can jazz pianist and vocal­ist lat­er con­fessed), the song hav­ing gone through mul­ti­ple revi­sions en route to being used in the World War Two-set Alan Ladd vehi­cle Cap­tain Carey, USA. Song­writ­ing duo Ray Evans and Jay Liv­ingston repur­posed their orig­i­nal arrange­ment specif­i­cal­ly for a scene where Ladd’s char­ac­ter is alert­ed to the Nazis’ immi­nent arrival by a local singer, although even this was changed in the final edit. Cole’s time­less ver­sion, though, remains untouch­able. AW

Writ­ten by Hen­ry Manci­ni with lyrics by John­ny Mer­cer; per­formed by Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn’s turn in Break­fast at Tiffany’s is one of cinema’s most endur­ing per­for­mances, her image plas­tered on the bed­room walls of uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents across the globe. This ren­di­tion of ​‘Moon Riv­er’, a song com­posed specif­i­cal­ly for Hep­burn by Hen­ry Manci­ni and Jon­ny Mer­cer, is a tes­ta­ment to the immense tal­ent which made her an icon of the screen. It’s a rev­e­la­to­ry moment of the film which cap­tures the oppos­ing inno­cence and melan­choly of her char­ac­ter. MA

Writ­ten by Ange­lo Badala­men­ti with lyrics by David Lynch; per­formed by Julee Cruise

Along­side Prince’s ​‘Pur­ple Rain’, this is a song that’s tough to lis­ten to with­out want­i­ng to shed a sin­gle salt tear. Although Cruise is best known for her con­tri­bu­tions to David Lynch’s TV ser­i­al, Twin Peaks, pro­vid­ing its tonal­ly cru­cial open­ing theme song, this celes­tial cut from 1986’s Blue Vel­vet (and her excel­lent LP ​‘Float­ing Into the Night’, penned and pro­duced by synth god­head Ange­lo Badala­men­ti) offered a moment’s divine grace in a film which force­ful­ly expos­es an under­bel­ly of putrid nihilism and grotesque sex­u­al vio­lence in pick­et fenced small-town Amer­i­ca. Hap­py lis­ten­ing! DJ

Writ­ten by Quin­cy Jones, Mar­i­lyn Bergman and Alan Bergman; per­formed by Ray Charles

It is sure­ly one of the great­est intro­duc­tions to a lead char­ac­ter in cin­e­ma his­to­ry – and we only ever see them from the waist down. On a hazy, sticky evening, a train rolls into town and off it steps a sharply-dressed man car­ry­ing a suit­case: it’s Vir­gil Tibbs (Sid­ney Poiti­er), a black detec­tive from Philadel­phia who’s been assigned to a mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion in small­town Mis­sis­sip­pi. Ray Charles’ gospel-infused title track bril­liant­ly sets the tone for Nor­man Jewison’s thought-pro­vok­ing pro­ce­dur­al, instant­ly evok­ing not just the humid­i­ty of the film’s set­ting but also the pres­sure-cook­er racial prej­u­dice that was still scar­i­ly preva­lent across the Deep South cir­ca 1967, despite the pass­ing of the Civ­il Rights Act three years ear­li­er. The film won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Pic­ture and, along with Charles’ song, con­tin­ues to res­onate today. AW

Writ­ten by Bey­on­cé Knowles, Cory Rooney, Samuel Barnes and Jean-Claude Olivi­er; per­formed by Destiny’s Child

There are undoubt­ed­ly a large num­ber of peo­ple out there who pure­ly know this 2000s pop banger for its per­ma­nent pres­ence on night­club playlists rather than as the crown­ing jew­el in the sound­track of McG’s cin­e­mat­ic take on Charlie’s Angels. The anthem for a gen­er­a­tion of women who kick ass and take names while also pay­ing their own mort­gage, it’s eclipsed its ori­gins, but also speaks to a time when a lot more effort was made gen­er­al­ly with the com­pi­la­tion of film sound­tracks. Check out the themed music video if you haven’t – it’s aged bet­ter than the film. HW

Writ­ten by Kei­th Forsey and Steve Schiff; per­formed by Sim­ple Minds

John Hugh­es and Sim­ple Minds: name a more icon­ic ​’80s duo… I’ll wait. Pro­duced by Kei­th Forsey, who also co-wrote ​‘Flash­dance… What a Feel­ing’ and ​‘The Heat is On’ from Bev­er­ly Hill Cop, ​‘Don’t You (For­get About Me)’ was ini­tial­ly passed on by a num­ber of singers includ­ing Annie Lennox and Chrissie Hyn­de; the lat­ter instead sug­gest­ing it to her hus­band, Sim­ple Minds front­man Jim Kerr. Reluc­tant to record some­one else’s mate­r­i­al, Kerr was nev­er­the­less per­suad­ed by his band­mates who felt the song would help them break the Amer­i­can mar­ket. They were right – ​‘Don’t You (For­get About Me)’ knocked Madonna’s ​‘Crazy for You’ off the top of the US Bill­board chart. They may have shared lit­tle in com­mon with the film’s teenage pro­tag­o­nists, but the Glaswe­gian New Wave group proved a per­fect fit for this quin­tes­sen­tial high school movie. AW

Writ­ten by Artis Ivey Jr, Lar­ry Sanders, Doug Rasheed and Ste­vie Won­der; per­formed by Coo­lio ft. LV

This return trip to the Black­board Jun­gle is a bit like Sis­ter Act with­out the songs and with the addi­tion of a white Whoopi Gold­berg. Michelle Pfeif­fer, slip­ping into her wilder­ness late ​’90s after the twin career peaks of Bat­man Returns and The Age of Inno­cence, assumes the role of Louanne John­son, a real-life marine who strug­gled to trans­fer instant kill com­bat tech­niques to the class­room of an inner-city high school. It end­ed up being an exam­ple of a film that became known pure­ly through the ubiq­ui­ty of its ace, Ste­vie Won­der-sam­pling pop-rap theme song ​‘Gangsta’s Par­adise’, per­formed by Coo­lio and the always-mys­te­ri­ous LV. DJ

Writ­ten by John Kan­der and Fred Ebb; per­formed by Liza Minnelli

A fire­crack­er with stars in her eyes, Liza Min­nel­li gives a hyp­not­ic per­for­mance of New York, New York for a cap­ti­vat­ed audi­ence in Mar­tin Scorsese’s 1977 hid­den gem. She shines in a fire engine-red suit (which is now emblem­at­ic of her ver­sion of the song) while a young Robert De Niro watch­es on. Years of mar­riage, ambi­tion and an inter­twined love of the city and the music all resur­face over Although the song was writ­ten for and orig­i­nal­ly per­formed by Minel­li, it only rose to pop­u­lar­i­ty two years lat­er, when croon­er Frank Sina­tra start­ed per­form­ing it dur­ing his live per­for­mances at Radio City Music Hall. EK

Writ­ten by Thom Yorke, Jon­ny Green­wood, Phil Sel­way, Ed O’Brien and Col­in Green­wood; per­formed by Radiohead

When direc­tor Baz Luhrmann com­mis­sioned Radio­head to write a song for his gaudy Shake­speare adap­ta­tion, he gave the band free reign with the last thir­ty min­utes of the film. The result was this haunt­ing track, which plays over the end cred­its and fea­tured on the band’s mas­ter­ful 1997 album, ​‘OK Com­put­er’. In just four-and-a-half min­utes, the song encap­su­lates the ecsta­sy, tragedy, and wrath of a for­bid­den romance, arguably with greater poignan­cy than the pre­ced­ing two hours of film. MA

Writ­ten and per­formed by Cur­tis Mayfield

We could have cho­sen anoth­er icon­ic theme song from a 1972 blax­ploita­tion flick, Mar­vin Gaye’s ​‘Trou­ble Man’. But how could we resist the com­bi­na­tion of Joseph ​“Lucky” Scott’s strolling bassline and ​“Mas­ter” Hen­ry Gibson’s crisp roto­tom beat which kicks off ​‘Super­fly’. And, of course, there’s Cur­tis Mayfield’s ice-cool vocal track, which effort­less­ly ele­vates his own social­ly-con­scious lyrics. The best-sell­ing sta­tus of the Super Fly sound­track might sug­gest that the film was uni­ver­sal­ly laud­ed, but in fact it was con­demned by the Black com­mu­ni­ty for sup­pos­ed­ly glo­ri­fy­ing the lifestyle of a Harlem pimp. Real­ly, direc­tor Gor­don Parks, Jr intend­ed the film as a wake-up call to both black and white Amer­i­ca over the ghet­toi­sa­tion of its urban cen­tres. AW

Writ­ten and per­formed by Dol­ly Parton

With its icon­ic piano melody and ever-pre­scient lyrics telling of women’s work­place woes, ​‘9 to 5’ is, with­out a shad­ow of a doubt, a mas­ter­piece. The title is a ref­er­ence to 9to5, the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Work­ing Women, which in part inspired Jane Fonda’s idea for the film, but this coun­try anthem is all Par­ton. Now a main­stay of karaōke booths around the world, it’s an infec­tious rebel yell with a crack­ing brass sec­tion. Inci­den­tal­ly, it was robbed of the Best Orig­i­nal Song Oscar in 1980, where Irene Carter’s ​‘Fame’ tri­umphed. HW

Writ­ten by Bar­ry Gibb, Robin Gibb and Mau­rice Gibb; per­formed by Bee Gees

If you haven’t strut­ted down the street with this song blar­ing in your head­phones, emu­lat­ing John Tra­vol­ta in the open­ing scene of Sat­ur­day Night Fever… have you tru­ly lived? As with the rest of the film, the endur­ing impact of this sequence is owed, in large part, to the Bee Gees’ icon­ic sound­track. The album proved to be a best sell­er and revi­talised the group’s ail­ing for­tunes, breath­ing new life into the dis­co genre in the process, albeit tem­porar­i­ly. MA

Writ­ten by Bob­by Wom­ack and JJ John­son; per­formed by Bob­by Womack

Few songs have tran­scend­ed the film for which they were orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten more emphat­i­cal­ly than Bob­by Womack’s soul-funk theme for Bar­ry Shear’s blax­ploita­tion-era social cri­tique. Mod­ern audi­ences are more like­ly to recog­nise it in rela­tion to oth­er, lat­er films, name­ly Quentin Tarantino’s Jack­ie Brown and Rid­ley Scott’s Amer­i­can Gang­ster. Its longevi­ty is a tes­ta­ment to the time­less rel­e­vance of Womack’s lyrics and, of course, that irre­sistible ​’70s beat. MA

Writ­ten by Paul Simon; per­formed by Simon & Garfunkel

The sto­ry goes that Paul Simon was reluc­tant to get involved in the music-for-movies game, view­ing it as ​‘sell­ing out’, but when he met direc­tor Mike Nichols, he was impressed enough by him and his lit­tle script for a lit­tle film called The Grad­u­ate that he gave him the ben­e­fit of the doubt. It’s just as well – the song went on to become as famous as the film it fea­tured in, earn­ing Simon & Gar­funkel two Gram­mys and appear­ing in count­less films since, includ­ing The Lemon­heads’ pop-punk ren­di­tion which fea­tured in Amer­i­can Pie. HW

Writ­ten by Prince; per­formed by Prince and The Revolution

When it comes to the fine art of album track­list­ing, one of the best deci­sions ever made was to close out Prince’s sem­i­nal 1984 album, ​‘Pur­ple Rain’, with the epony­mous eight minute and 41 sec­ond gospel rock opus (replete with echo drums to bring tears to your eyes). Anoth­er can­ny deci­sion was made when it came to devel­op­ing the struc­ture of the 1984 musi­cal film of the same name, which also ends on a breath­tak­ing live per­for­mance of the title track. It sees Prince assum­ing the guise of an abused, albeit nat­ti­ly-dressed chancer named The Kid who just wants to make a name for him­self in the music biz. The song’s slow-grind majesty enables him to both get the girl (Apol­lo­nia Kotero as Apol­lo­nia) and sock it to pop-funk titans (and Prince label mates) Mor­ris Day and the Time. Win-win. DJ

Writ­ten and per­formed by Bob Dylan

It’s the kind of song you feel proud to know, and thank­ful for the sim­plic­i­ty of its exis­tence. It’s one that you’re so sure is part of your cul­tur­al and emo­tion­al make up, that to think that it once only belonged to a 1973 west­ern movie seems hard to believe. Cov­ered and giv­en a new iden­ti­ty by Eric Clap­ton, Guns N’ Ros­es and even Avril Lav­i­gne, Bob Dylan’s ​‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’ feels like a found­ing anthem of life-affirm­ing rock music. And yet it was first and fore­most a track – arguably the best – on the sound­track to Sam Peckinpah’s west­ern dra­ma, Pat Gar­rett and Bil­ly the Kid. The pow­er­ful bal­lad is sim­ple and sear­ing, illus­trat­ing the gun blaz­ing cli­mac­tic moment with a sense of heart­break­ing final­i­ty. Shootouts come and go in movies, but Dylan’s music gives a haunt­ing emo­tion, heavy with sad­ness to the scene. EK

Writ­ten by Carl­ton Riden­hour, Eric Sadler, Hank Box­ley, Ralph Andrei Duay and Kei­th Box­ley; per­formed by Pub­lic Enemy

When Spike Lee and pro­duc­er Bill Steph­ney approached Chuck D about col­lab­o­rat­ing on the writer/director’s tale of sim­mer­ing racial ten­sions in New York City, they weren’t look­ing for a theme song so much as an anthem – and that’s pre­cise­ly what Pub­lic Ene­my deliv­ered. Rev­o­lu­tion­ary in every sense of the word, this scorch­ing musi­cal protest fixed mid­dle Amer­i­ca firm­ly in its crosshairs while issu­ing an urgent ral­ly­ing cry to Gen Xers to stand up and take action. The Long Island hip-hop out­fit had already achieved folk hero sta­tus with­in the Black com­mu­ni­ty by 1989, but the suc­cess of Do the Right Thing ensured that their mes­sage of resis­tance and self-empow­er­ment spread far beyond this.

A longer stu­dio edit of ​‘Fight the Pow­er’ appears on Pub­lic Enemy’s 1990 album ​‘Fear of a Black Plan­et’ – com­plete with a vocal sam­ple lift­ed from a speech by Chica­go attor­ney and civ­il rights activist Thomas N Todd – but the ver­sion that plays through­out the film is arguably punchi­er and still more direct. From the open­ing cred­its, where Rosie Perez dances furi­ous­ly to the track, teeth grit­ted in silent indig­na­tion, to Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) blast­ing it around Brook­lyn on his boom­box, this is a song that sim­ply demands to be heard. ​“Lemme hear you say…” AW